EMarketer estimates that over the next 12 months, high-speed Internet penetration in the United States will exceed 50 percent of households, meaning there will be over 60 million residential broadband subscribers. Also of note is the increasing popularity of using these high-speed connections for VoIP, IPTV and paid audio and video content.

In-Stat reports that as of 2006's third quarter, approximately 9 million U.S. households had at least one active user of VoIP; Vonage and Time Warner lead facilities-based services with about 1.7 million subscribers each, and Skype, MSN and Yahoo lead client-based services. Forty-nine percent of residential VoIP users In-Stat surveyed had disconnected their traditional phone services upon beginning VoIP services, with almost 12 percent of respondents saying VoIP is their only phone connection. These results show the impact that even free VoIP services are having on traditional voice.

EMarketer predicts 9.6 million VoIP subscribers in the United States by the end of 2006, making up 18.8 percent of households with broadband and rising to close to 40 percent of households with broadband by 2010. EC